9 minute read
My comedy lessons with Frankie Howerd Gary Files
In Toronto in 1976, actor Gary Files enjoyed a masterclass in comic timing, instinct and control from Frankie Howerd
Advertisement
Frankie goes to Canada
Ihave to confess I was desperate. I was working in Toronto and my agent put me up for a new comedy that was to star Frankie Howerd.
The 1976 comedy series was originally to be called Oooh, Canada! But they quickly changed that to The Frankie Howerd Show when they realised he had a surprising following among Canadian viewers.
Although born and brought up an Australian, I decided I would go to this audition reading as a Canadian – and a berserk one at that. The part was the idiot son of Mrs Otterby with the very ‘end of the pier’ name of Hardin I Otterby. Thanks to my ability with accents, I was able to pull off being an outrageous Canadian idiot lad, and in doing so made the writers laugh. Which got me the role for the pilot.
When Frankie arrived to do the pilot, I decided I had to continue to talk like a real Canadian and not in my normal Australian accent at any time, or I might well lose the job.
We found out from Frankie later that he’d been through some tough periods by the time he’d got to us – so he was very suspicious of all us locals at the start of rehearsals. But, in a very short time, he came to realise there were no problems with the professionals he was working with, and that none of us was anything but very much on his side.
From then on, he was a wonderful and very creative friend who shared his unique talent and comic expertise freely.
After I’d made it very clear that my sexual preferences were heterosexual, the subject never came up again, and rehearsing with him was a fascinating exercise in comic control. Although he always seemed to be ‘winging it’, he kept in all the funny bits that happened by chance and ad-libs that went on in rehearsal. Once Frankie decided the changes he wanted to finalise, they were fixed very firmly into our scripts.
We’d also noticed that he had a surprisingly tatty wig that didn’t quite match his greying hair. In the beginning, it was like the Fawlty Towers sketch about not mentioning the war. One was desperate not to look at the wig, even in passing – which became very hard, especially when he was at speed, doing his thing. But, thank God, after a while we didn’t notice it at all.
I remembered him most, from my time in England, in the TV series That Was the Week That Was (1962-63), when he just sat on a stool and talked wittily to the live audience about the political scene.
He told us he had no idea what he was talking about, not being at all political. It was simply the fantastic scripts he was getting from a stable of amazing writers such as Peter Cook and John Cleese. His magic was making their words live as his words, with all those special interjections of his… ‘Oooh, no! Listen! Don’t laugh…’
It astonished me that he delivered those killer lines and asides ‘straight down the barrel’ of the camera. In North America, we would rather die than be caught delivering anything straight to camera.
Our rehearsals taught me just how he managed that intimate effect. He had a ‘slave camera’ – one that stayed on him only – during the taping of the show. Anything that was funny outside the rehearsed script during taping (say, an unusual reaction from the audience) he immediately reacted to on the slave camera – and got a second laugh. Most of these extras were kept in when the final compilation tape went to air.
One memorable moment was over the delivery of a letter Frankie was expecting that was very important to the script.
‘Oooh, I think I hear the postman,’ he said to the slave camera, as the rest of us chatted on in the background.
However, the letter flap on the front door hadn’t been used for years and wouldn’t open properly. Still, the props man was determined to keep pushing the letter through. We all shut up and turned to look at this macabre ‘thing’ that was very slowly coming through the flap until it fell, accordion-like, to the floor. Then we all roared with laughter.
‘Keep it in,’ Frankie said, ‘I’ll get two out of that.’
As with all great comedians I’ve come across over the years, there was a lurking sadness – even loneliness, deep inside. Despite his having Dennis Heymer (1929-2009), his manager and life partner, with him, it persisted.
I was having my own problems at the time. My marriage of nine years was coming apart and I was living in a huge house with the wife of one of Canada’s finest actors, who was away on tour.
I said to her, ‘Please let’s talk for a bit so I can use my own accent – I’m going nuts all day doing Canadian on and off the set.’
Frankie Howerd – ‘A wonderful friend who shared his unique talent freely’
She also gave the roast dinner of the year to Frankie and Dennis and her matriarch of a mother, who was a great Frankie fan. Neither Frankie nor Dennis were cooks – so they ate out all the time. He was forever saying, ‘You know, what I’d really, really like is a home-cooked meal … I’m so sick of restaurants.’
This roast dinner was a huge success as he entertained us all with stories from the biz and also chatted on about an amazing range of serious subjects. It was surprising to hear there was such a deep-thinking person behind the façade.
During the taping, we had a live audience whom he insisted on warming up. He used an old favourite routine from his club work up north in Britain. We had no idea that it would work in Canada – so we were anxious the first time he did it.
We needn’t have worried. He’d requested a lady who could only just play the piano, but who nonetheless thought she was quite good at it. He did his own special warm-up routine with her, featuring them both doing his Three Little Fishies song. As she started, he’d go into a real take to the audience, as if to say, what is this? The audience rolled with laughter as he went on, ‘Oh, isn’t she awful? It’s the management, you see. Poor thing. No wait! … No. It’s not her fault, you know, she’s doing her best. Oh, you can’t belieeeve what I’ve got to put up with!!’
On and on, the poor love persisted in trying to do the song, not knowing what the heck was happening. Naturally we had a different lady at each taping – and they usually ended up joining in the laughter, and forgiving him.
Another home-cooked feast was
The Frankie Howerd Show, Toronto, 1976. Top left: Gary Files, left, in green T-shirt, and Peggy Mahon, his love interest, far right. Top right: Frankie as a Pearly King. Far left: Gary and Frankie. Left: Norman Campbell directs, script in hand
made by a young British couple I’d met who were huge Frankie fans. Well into the night, and several glasses of red later, I ran out of steam and lapsed into Oz-speak. I said, ‘Ah, I’m too tired, Frankie. I’m afraid you’ve got an Aussie in disguise.’
He too lapsed … into Frankie-speak: ‘Oooh, you naughty thing. No, really. Not to worry, my boy. Your secret is safe with me.’
And indeed it was, apart from the odd whisper at times – ‘Careful dear, your Oz is showing…’ – with a hearty wink to follow.
The series went on and on and was not only getting good reviews but also rating better than a home series called King of Kensington – which must have been galling to the CBC executives as they didn’t renew us after our 13 episodes were over. It had the most amazing following at times. An actor friend, Leslie Carlson, was shooting a drama up in Dawson City and told me that in the local tavern where they went at the end of the day, there we were up on the TV – with all these tough, rough miner types fixated on Frankie Howerd and his adventures in Toronto. It was sort of exotic for them and a real break from their normal life in the wilds of Canada.
On 26th April 1976, Sid James, whom Frankie knew well, died on stage at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. We were rehearsing at the time. Frankie was very affected by the news and said, ‘What a way to go, eh? … I’d love to go like that.’ Alas, this was not to be. In 1992, Frankie died of respiratory problems after a virus, aged 75. I felt really sad at the news of this death. We’d stayed in touch by phone whenever I was in Britain again.
My time with Frankie is best summed up by a journey we made to see our co-star Peggy Mahon (my love interest in the series) doing her jazz-singing act in a tiny bar in Buffalo, New York.
After rehearsals, Frankie arranged for a stretch limousine to pick us up after the early dismissal from set he’d wrangled. We were driven all the way to Buffalo – a couple of hours each way. He entertained us with chat there and back. Once in Buffalo, after each jazz set from Peggy, he entertained the amazed bar customers as well. I don’t think they got all his jokes because of his accent – so exotic for the Yanks – but the applause was terrific as we left to go back to Toronto.
It was a gesture of kindness and empathy from a star – yet a fellow performer – for a team who had, thanks to him, over the whole series become as one. We who worked with him learnt so much – and, most of all, he trusted us.
The main writers were with us during all the rehearsals and laughed heartily at their own jokes.
‘Is that funny?’ He’d ask us, sotto voce.
‘No,’ we’d often reply, and he’d cut it – or, better still, do a Frankie gesture or comment and make it work. He was always checking his comedy instinct because he often felt North Americans had a different sense of humour from him.
When it all ended and we went our separate ways, never to work together again, our own work from then on was enriched by our having worked so closely with this surprisingly inclusive and thoughtful man. All I can still say is: ‘Thanks a million, Frankie!’
